Tavares back from the brink
There are an awful lot of negatives to take from Arsenal's defeat to Southampton so let's try and start off on a positive foot. After being left out of the starting XI for the loss to Brighton last week many though Nuno Tavares' Gunners career was over. The Portuguese full back had been subbed before the second half of each of his previous two starts, and despite being ostensibly the only left back at the club after Kieran Tierney's injury it still seemed Mikel Arteta did not trust him enough to feature again for his side.
When the news came through that Tavares was in the starting line up for the trip to St. Mary's it was something of a shock as Arteta had spent much of his pre-match press conference extolling the virtues of playing Granit Xhaka at left back instead. "Just look at the stats when the team has played with Granit as a left-back," the Spaniard said. "They don't get much better than that."
